Maple Leaf fans can only hope it wasn’t some kind of sporting karma spinning around to haunt their beloved club.

Everyone knows the horrid numbers of history. No playoff game since 2004. No Stanley Cup since 1967. So perhaps some were shocked by the presumptuous number of the moment. The team confirmed Tuesday that ticket prices, already the highest in the league, are headed skyward next season, this by an average of 2.5 per cent. Costs are up, the club said, this while failing to mention the recent four-month labour war that will bring NHL payrolls down. And as for that “free” game the Leafs “gave” their season-ticket holders at the outset of this truncated season — they’re reclaiming that dough and more with this bump.

At least Torontonians can celebrate something: the Leafs are the undisputed, undefeated world champs of stone-cold shamelessness.

As for hockey, well, for most of this weird season the men who go to work for the marginally essential on-ice arm of the billion-dollar empire have often appeared to be refreshingly competent at their jobs. So surely it was just a coincidence that on the day they acknowledged the price hike, the Maple Leafs lost their third game in a row, 5-2, to the Winnipeg Jets.